


Cognitive Dissonance

by Vituperative_cupcakes



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU - The Ford that steps out of the portal is not the Ford of that dimension, Gen, Stan does not take it well, things go downhill from there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7329409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vituperative_cupcakes/pseuds/Vituperative_cupcakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Finally, after all these long years of waiting, you’re actually here! Brother!”<br/>The man who had stepped from the portal squinted. “I’m sorry...do I know you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A blast from some past

“Finally, after all these long years of waiting, you’re actually here! Brother!”

The man who had stepped from the portal squinted. “I’m sorry...do I know you?”

Grunkle Stan chuckled desperately. “That’s my Ford, always a kidder.”

Dipper and Soos gaped, looking from one and then to the other.

“Grunkle Stan, wh...what’s going on?”

Stan’s doppleganger turned to grimace at the portal.

“Alas, I had hoped other dimensions would be smarter than I was.” he turned to Grunkle Stan. “I’m going to have to ask you to to dismantle this...sir.”

Stan’s grin had stiffened so that it was a rictus. His eyes were frightened.

“Come on, Sixter...stop joking around.”

“Grunkle Stan?” Mabel’s voice cut tearfully through the air. “What’s going on?”

Stan turned to them.

“Kids, I'd like to introduce you to your other Grunkle. This is my twin, Stanford Pines.”

“Stanford? Buh...but _you’re_ Stanford.” Dipper pointed a trembling finger at Stan.

“Nnnope. You’re talking to Stan _ley_ Pines, kids. The black sheep of the Pines family.”

A look of sudden despair crossed the stranger’s face.

“Oh god, I'm so sorry,” he said in a subdued tone. “I...I come from a dimension with only one Stan Pines.”

Grunkle Stan had his back to the newcomer. It stiffened. “Ha ha heh...such a kidder, Ford.”

“So wait, _you’re_ Stanford Pines?” Dipper squinted.

“Yes. I'm afraid in my dimension, there was only one Stan Pines born, and that was me.” Ford adjusted his glasses. “I have a much younger brother, named Sherman Pines—”

“That’s our granpa!” Mabel burst out.

Ford was taken aback. Then he grinned. “Well, well, well, I have...a griece. And grephews?”

“Um, just one I'm afraid,” Dipper said with a little laugh.

“He called me a grephew? I’m never washing these ears again!” Soos gushed.

Stan’s face had frozen. He turned to face Ford again, his grin so severe it was manic.

“Ha ha ha...cut it out...bro…”

Ford’s face fell again. “I’m terribly sorry. I’m a Ford, but not the Ford of this dimension.”

“B-but I rebuilt this portal to find you! I read gross science books every night for thirty years!” Stan’s grin did not once leave his face. Tears were beginning in the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry I banished you, Sixter, but come on. Stop kidding around, this isn’t funny!”

Ford’s face was grave. He stepped forward and put hands on Stanley’s shoulders.

“I’m not joking, Stanley,” he said softly. He looked into Stan’s eyes, searching for reason. He found none. “It’s not your twin brother. I’m a different Stanford.”

Stan’s face didn’t change, not a bit, as he slowly fell backward.

“Grunkle Stan!”

Ford flung out a hand. “Hold it! He may be undergoing cardiac arrest.”

He held two fingers to Stan’s carotid artery. He rolled back his eyelids and listened to his chest. Ford sighed and stood up.

“False alarm, he’s just fainted.”

The trio breathed a sigh of relief.

“Here, help me get him upstairs.”

 

“—so I told everything to those government guys, and here we are,” Dipper said.

Ford squinted at the retreating black suvs, Mabel’s drawings still in his hand. “Huh. that’s quite a tale, Dipper.”

Dipper flushed and fidgeted. “Yep, all of it. So...in your dimension, did you have these?” He held up a journal.

As a response, Ford opened his coat. A red book bearing a #7 sat snugly in his inner pocket. Dipper gave an unmanly squeal. “Wow!” He cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said, an octave or two deeper.

“Something bothers me about this, though.” Ford put his hand on his chin and pondered the front of Dipper’s journal. “The silhouette on this hand has five equisize fingers. Do you know how rare fully-formed polydactyly is?”

“How?”

Ford unsheathed his right hand. The thing beside his pinky was more like a duclaw than a regular finger. Dipper raised his eyebrows.

Ford chuckled a little. “Now you know why I wear the gloves.”

Mabel squeezed water from a cloth and put it on Stan’s forehead. They’d set him down in the recliner, now Soos was massaging his temples.

“Grunkle Ford...oh, I'm sorry.”

“No, no, no.” Ford smiled. “Even though I'm not from this dimension, I'm honored to be your Grunkle.”

Mabel smiled shyly. “Okay...Grunkle Ford.” She giggled a little. “So what do we do now?”

Ford set his eyebrows in deep thought. “Well, we’re going to have to dismantle that portal, first of all. Darn thing is too much of a liability. I was planning to do that in my own dimension. Once I got back, that is.”

There was movement from the recliner. Stan suddenly sat bolt upright, as if he’d never been unconscious at all.

“Gotta get dinner,” he muttered, and stood, shedding the washcloth and the blanket they’d pulled over his lap. He walked double-time to the kitchen without acknowledging anyone else in the room.

“Kids!” he called from the kitchen, “I need everything those goons knocked over put back into place! And who’s watching the shop?”

The four of them looked at each other.

“He’s probably in shock,” Ford told them quietly, “I think it’s best if we act...delicately in your Grunkle’s presence for the time being.”

“Does that mean drinking with my pinky extended?” Soos asked.

Ford gave him a long, silent look. “N...no?”

“Ah. I'll just be getting back to the shop then.” Soos awkwardly shuffled sideways until he was out of the room. Ford’s stare followed him.

“Yeah, where exactly did you guys find him?” he whispered behind his hand.

“He sort of...grew up around this place,” Dipper said.

“Well, that explains a bit.”

 

Stan was frying something vigorously with his back to the kitchen door. Ford entered on cat feet. The kitchen was so very like his own, plus thirty years of clutter. The house was littered with weird artifacts, much like he had started to do in his own dimension before being unceremoniously yanked from it. It really looked like someone had spent thirty years waiting for his return.

“I saved your room the way you left it,” Stan said suddenly. Ford jumped a little. Stan had given no indication he’d heard Ford enter the room. Now he turned off the burner and swiveled around to face Ford, untying his apron. His eyes were curiously blank.

“Thank...thank you.” Ford swallowed. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting your house back,” Stan said almost robotically, “and you’ll want me to hit the road.”

“Oh no, no. I couldn’t possibly—listen, Stanley, I think for the time being we should...I'm not going to kick you out. I’ve got plenty of space down in the lab, and you’ve got this...trinket shop going on, I think we can both live reasonably well in the same house. For a while.”

Stan was awestruck. “Sixter...you mean it?”

“Well, yeah.” Ford rubbed the back of his neck. “And the kids would miss you if you left, anyway.”

“Brother!” Stan’s hug was like an iron shackle. Ford flung his arm out to the sides and he held in a breath. Then, little by little, he relaxed and placed his arms around Stanley.

“It’ll be great, you’ll see.” Stan had tears in his eyes as he drew back. “Just like old times.”

Ford forced a little laugh. There was something in Stan’s face, some impenetrable curtain behind the cheer, that gave him pause. The Stan of this dimension, Ford suspected, was not quite all there.

 

Ford frowned at the room. It did indeed resemble the room he’d left in his own dimension, plus and minus a few things.

“Kids,” he called out, “is there anything I should know about in this room?”

“Rug makes you switch bodies with other people, the drawer opens up to a secret compartment, bed springs are shot,” Dipper called back in a monotone.

Ford nodded. Right.

After rolling up the rug and peering down into the drawer, Ford sat on the bed. It gave a pained screech. He smiled. Just like home.

He turned on the reading lamp and sat back on the bed, drawing his knees up so he could set the journal on them.

_Entry #2649,_ he wrote, _dimension 46*\\. To my dismay, I discovered my own dimension was not the only one with a portal. The Stanford of this dimension was equally nearsighted in his ambition and endangered the integrity of the universe. Worse, he had a brother who repeated his mistake. For my first course of action, I must ensure the destruction of the portal in this dimension. Once that’s been accomplished I must once again attempt to return to my home dimension—_

“Knock knock,” someone said outside the door.

Ford frowned and stashed the journal beneath his pillow. The door opened to disclose Stan, who had his hands hidden behind his back.

“Sorry for interrupting, bro.” Ford decided not to correct him. “I just...I wanted to apologize. For getting rid of you all those years ago. I know you probably hate me and all, but it really was an accident.”

Ford swallowed. He couldn’t tell if Stan genuinely believed he was really his twin brother or was just so depressed he didn’t care which Ford he apologized to.

Ford decided it didn’t matter.

“Look, Stanley, I don’t hate you. I’m not crazy that you rebuilt the thing that started this whole mess, but…” Ford rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “I’m the one who built the stupid thing in the first place. I can’t place too much blame on your shoulders.”

Stan looked like he’d just received a stay of execution. “You really forgive me?”

Ford wondered how many times he’d have to say it before Stan actually believed it. “Hey, you’re...family, right?”

Stan practically exploded with joy. He looked like a completely different man when he was happy, even held himself differently. His chest puffed out and his shoulders straightened as he gave Ford a surprisingly potent slug on the arm.

“Sixter, that’s great!”

Ford grinned and rubbed the spot, trying not to wince. He considered telling Stan that the nickname he kept speaking had been an insult in his home dimension, but was distracted when Stan produced a plate with a slice of pie from behind his back.

“I got a lemon meringue pie from the store, I know it’s your favorite.” Astonishingly enough, it was. “I bought it when the countdown started, so it would be thawed in time for your return. It’s only a freezer pie, but, well…” Stan trailed off, his smile fading as if he’d said too much.

Ford nervously cleared his throat. “Thank you, Stanley.” He took the plate.

Stan lingered in the doorway. “So...whatcha doing?”

Ford moved so that his body blocked sight of the bed. “I’m just...readjusting. I haven’t been home in a while, it takes time to get used to a world where gravity is constant.”

“Oh. You wanna watch some tv?”

“Stanley I haven’t watched television in thirty years and I'm sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything on there that might interest me.”

Stan’s face did not register disappointment. His whole body seemed to shrink in on itself until he was Sad Stan again. The action was oddly familiar, though Ford was hard pressed to say why.

“Alright,” he said with forced cheer, “well, when you’re done with nerdy science books, come see me okay?”

Ford smiled tightly. He shut the door in Stan’s face because Stan had not moved back even an inch. He waited for five minutes. Finally, he heard Stan’s footsteps going away from the door.

Ford let out a breath.

The pie didn’t smell like anything other than freezer merengue. Ford chastised himself for being suspicious like that. He put the pie aside to eat later and retrieved his journal.

_Addendum: my 46*\ counterpart had a twin who is not taking the separation well. He worries me. His fragile mental state could cause problems down the line. Reminder to tread with caution._

He tucked the journal back beneath his pillow and fetched one of his research books, pie still untouched on the night stand. He didn’t mean to fall asleep. When he woke in the morning, the pie was gone, and someone had folded his glasses carefully on the nightstand.


	2. Roughousing and remembering

Ford wiped sweat from his brow as the sounds of summer fun poured from the surveillance speakers.

_ “Higher! Higher! Dipper, c’mon!” _

The bolts on the portal were tighter than an ionic bond. He had to loosen a series of sixteen for his preliminary steps to dismantle the portal. Ideally he would bust the portal down to bare-bones structure that any layman could finish dismantling, before stepping through himself.

_ “You call that a toss? You probably couldn’t even throw up.” _

_ “Grunkle Stan, ew.” _

Ford squinted at the array, feeling for his tools. Maybe a shot of dilithium grease and a few cranks from the trusty carbon—

His hand busily slapped empty space.

Ford looked away from the portal to his tools. There was a very conspicuous gap between the 7/64 s  wrench and the octagonal-head screwdriver. Ford lifted up several boxes and frowned.

_ “C’mon, cut it out you guys. This isn’t fair.” _

Ford dropped a box and sighed. He made the long journey upstairs into the yard.

“Stanley, have you seen my carbon neutronic— _ what are you doing?” _

Stan was holding Dipper in a rear naked choke while he and Mabel laughed. Stan’s face fell as Ford ran over and pried Stan’s arm from Dipper’s neck. The boy fell to his hands and knees, coughing.

“Hey Sixter, what gives?” Stan looked confused and dismayed. 

“What gives? You were choking a  _ child, _ Stanley!” Ford rubbed Dipper’s back. Dipper coughed, regaining some of his normal color.

“We were just...roughhousing, you know?” Stan backed away a little. “Like dad used to do.”

“Yeah, and it was wrong back then, too!” Ford rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Stanley, I know dad said roughhousing with children toughens them up, but it doesn’t. It  _ hurts _ . And it cripples them emotionally.”

Stan looked bereft. The stupid eyepatch was cocked crooked on his head, making him somehow more pathetic.

“Grunkle Ford, he was just playing.” Mabel walked forward and laid a hand on Dipper’s back. “He’d never really hurt Dipper. He’s fine. Right Dipper?”

“I can’t feel my toes,” Dipper coughed.

Ford gave Stan a severe look.

Stan rubbed the back of his neck. “Well...gee, Ford, what do you want me to say?”

“Apologize to your nephew, Stanley.”

Stan squinted and tilted his head, as if he had never heard the phrase before.

“...I’m sorry, Dipper.”

“No probs.” Dipper stood, trying and failing to look suave. 

Stan gave a weak chuckle. “See, Ford? Nothing like a little roughhousing for the Pines family, right?”

He slugged Ford on the arm. Ford sidestepped it.

“Actually, about that Stanley: I would prefer you stop hitting me on the arm. I know I can take it after decades of dimensional travel, but there are better ways to show affection.”

Stan looked deprived again, like Ford had done something wrong by not immediately going along with him.

Ford sighed. “I was just coming up to ask if you had seen my carbon neutronic hexatrope. It’s missing and I need it to dismantle the portal.”

Stan immediately got shifty-eyed. 

“I dunno, I can’t keep any of your weird science utensils straight.”

Ford blinked wearily. “Really? Because you would’ve needed it to get the portal operational again.”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. Why is the sun so hot? My head hurts, I'm going in,” Stan babbled as he shuffled awkwardly sideways into the house.

Ford and the children watched him go.

“Does he always do that?” Ford asked.

“Oh yeah. Usually when you ask him about money or missing food,” Mabel said sadly.

Ford wiped a hand across his forehead. “Children, I need your help. I need to dismantle the portal, and I don’t think Stan’s ever going to accept that I don’t belong here.”

“Grunkle Ford, how is Grunkle Stan ever going to find his brother again if you dismantle the portal?”

Ford thought for a long moment before answering. “He might not ever find him again. But that would still be preferable to the consequences of leaving that gaping dimensional wound open.”

He crouched so he could put an arm around either child. “I know your uncle is a sad man. But well...that really can’t be helped. The universe is more important than one man’s hurt feelings.”

The twins were silent.

“I guess,” Mabel admitted. Dipper was thoughtful and silent. Good. Ford liked that. 

“Hey,” he said, “what was it you were doing before I came out here? Sounded fun.”

“Well, we filled those water balloons with warm pickle juice, and we were bowling them at those gnomes over there,” Dipper said shyly.

“Good. Nasty things. Won’t stop bathing in squirrells.” Ford shuddered.

“You wanna join us?” Mabel asked.

“Would I? How would you kids like to see the old Pines pitch?” Ford stood up and hefted a balloon.

In this manner they passed the rest of the afternoon. At odd times, Ford would glance back at the house and imagine he could see a silhouette watching from the windows. But it was never there when he looked back, so he brushed it off.

They sat together on the porch after they were done. The kids were devouring rainbow popsicles as Ford busily paged through a journal.

“I need to ask you two something. Have you ever seen this symbol?” He held up a picture of Bill Cipher.

“Broke into Grunkle Stan’s mind. Turned Dipper into a sockpuppet. Tried to break into the real world,” the kids recited in unison.

Ford blinked. “Ah, good. So you know. Well, there’s an added danger here. He lives for destruction and chaos. That portal would allow him to invade this world and twist it to his own...twisted specifications. I hardly need to inform you of how terrible it would all be. So I'm going to need your help.”

“Anything, Grunkle Ford.” Dipper’s eyes shone with hero worship. 

“I need you to run interference for me. Help me by distracting Stanley. I have a feeling he’s going to try to obstruct me in any way he can. I’ll continue to dismantle the portal without announcing my progress. The quicker I get it done, the less chance this cycloptic menace has to take advantage.”

“I dunno…” Mabel looked apprehensively at her feet. Small wonder. She appeared to be closer to Stanley.

Ford put a hand on her shoulder. “Mabel, there’s no way to avoid hurting your uncle because he is deliberately putting himself in the way of pain. What he wants is impossible. I can’t be the Ford of this dimension, and I can’t risk the fate of the universe for his delusions.”

“We’ll do it,” Dipper butted in. “Right Mabel? This is for his own good.”

Mabel’s eyes were still dubious. “Well, if it’s for his own good…”

The back door burst open as Stan came out, carrying a tub of popcorn. “Ducktective is on! Who wants BBQ Chipackerz?”

“This gal!” Mabel cheered, throwing up her hands. 

Ford quickly shut the journal.

“Actually, Stanley, I was hoping to spend some family time with the kids.”

Stan shrank again. Ford realized why it looked so familiar to him now. He could recall himself doing the same thing, all throughout childhood and adolescence. Curling under the weight of everyone’s gaze. It was only when he escaped to college and was allowed to be himself that he learned to stand tall.

Ford smiled and patted the seat beside Mabel. “Hey...Fiver, there’s room enough on the bench for one more.”

Stan blinked. “You really mean that?”

Ford patted the seat again.

Stan launched himself, squishing the rest of the family to the side in his enthusiasm. 

“Dibs!”

They laughed at that. Ford put the journal away in his inside pocket. Stan’s eyes followed, and he glanced away immediately when Ford looked over.

“So, Grunkle Ford. What was it like before...y’know?”

Ford hesitated. He questioned the wisdom of revealing his own history too much. If it clashed too obviously with Stanley’s memory, the cognitive dissonance might send him into a spiral of denial.

“Well,” he said carefully, “I'm sure Stanley’s told you all about our early life in New Jersey, right?”

Twin stares of incomprehension met this statement.

Ford sighed.

“Not much to tell,” Stan said abruptly. Ford hadn’t expected him to start speaking. Stan looked out of the porch at an angle, so that the reflection of the light turned his glasses opaque. “We grew up poor in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. Typical upbringing. We were just your run-of-the-mill boy adventurers until genius here started hitting the books, bigtime. That’s when dad really sat up and took notice.”

Ford laughed, relieved that it would be this easy. “Yeah, I remember that. He started hanging all his hopes on me.  _ ‘Someday you’re going to make this family rich.’ _ Right, Stanley?”

If he’d heard, Stan didn’t show it. 

“So what happened? How’d you wind up here?” Dipper asked.

“Well, there was this science fair.” Ford was watching Stan carefully. “There were these bigwigs from an important school coming to judge the entries. All I had to do was create one thing worthy of note, and I would be catapulted to academic royalty.”

Dipper’s eyes were big. “And did you do it?”

Ford snort-chuckled. “No. I took a long, hard look at my life and realized I couldn’t live with that kind of pressure on me all the time. I sabotaged my own entry.”

“What?”

Stan was quite still. No emotion showed on his face.

“I had created a perpetual motion machine as my science fair entry.” Ford leaned back and scratched at a sideburn. “Well, I made sure the ‘perpetual’ part of its name no longer applied. I only escaped punishment by the skin of my teeth. I told my dad that some other kid had sabotaged the machine, luckily someone had left a snack wrapper near my exhibit, which lent verisimilitude to my story. I went to a backup school instead of the university. Less prestigious, but less pressure too.”

“He blamed me,” Stan said.

His voice betrayed no emotion, his face didn’t so much as twitch.

“Dad thought I did it on purpose. He threw me out of the house. I had to spend my eighteenth birthday on the street because of that science fair.”

“Stanley…”

“Grunkle Stan, I'm so sorry,” Mabel lisped.

Stan came to, as if he’d forgotten, once again, that he wasn’t alone.

“Ah, you know.” he waved his hand flippantly. “Learned some important skills. Picked up some Spanish. Had to swim out of a sunken PT Cruiser, blah blah blah, same old song.”

Ford couldn’t stop himself from gaping. 

“So...how’d you both wind up in Gravity Falls?”

“A government grant and an encyclopedia of anomalous phenomena, how else?” Ford said.

The twins laughed a little.

“I...I followed him here.” Stan spoke hesitatingly, like he had to think carefully about every word. “Actually, he sent for me. He created the portal down there, and he wanted me to hide the evidence. Well, long story short, strong words were said, punches were exchanged, and Sixter here wound up in the portal.”

Ford coughed. “Yes, well, actually Stanley, I probably tripped a little too.”

“Yeesh, you keep excusing me so easily.” Stan shot him an accusing look. “I’m beginning to think you don’t really mean it.”

“Well, what do you want, Stanley? I’m trying to meet you halfway here!”

Stan stood up. “Look, I don’t need your pity, alright?”

Now Ford stood. “Who said I pity you? I just said it might not entirely be your fault!”

“That’s a switch. When I was growing up,  _ everything  _ was my fault!”

“And I’m not saying that’s right! I’m just saying—”

“Guys, guys.” Mabel stood between them, holding up her hands. “You just got reunited after thirty years apart, can’t you try to have a little understanding? Grunkle to Grunkle?”

Ford and Stan exchanged a glare. Ford softened first.

“She’s right. Stanley, I'm sorry.”

Stan deflated. It was odd, it almost seemed like he had been wishing for a fight. Well, fighting was probably all he knew, come to think of it. Ford tried to imagine internalizing all their father’s survival-of-the-fittest talk, left without a high intellect to fall back on and taking refuge in physical strength.

Ford put a hand out. Stan balled his hand into a fist, as if he’d rather punch Ford on the arm and be done with it. Then, gradually, he relaxed his hand and put it forward until it rested palm-to-palm with Ford’s, his pinky just barely grazing the sixth, stubby little finger.

Ford gripped his hand gently and shook it up and down. It was like shaking hands with a dog.

“Let bygones be bygones,” he said, “am I right kids?”

Suddenly, he formed his other hand into a fist and punched rhythmically upwards.

“Pines! Pines!  Pines!” he chanted to the shock of the kids.

Mabel recovered first, joining his chant with a grin. Dipper was not far behind.

Stan gave him a murky look, as if he still couldn’t quite figure out Ford.

Then, with his free hand, he joined the war whoop.

“Pines! Pines! Pines!”

 

_ My ersatz brother is beginning to trouble me. I’m almost completely certain he’s hidden a crucial tool for dismantling the portal. Thank goodness his poker face is terrible, otherwise I might waste time in speculation. The children are another boon. I have to wonder if the Sherman of my dimension married and had children as well. I haven’t seen him in so long… _

Ford lifted the pencil from the paper and stared off to the side. He hadn’t had a bout of homesickness this strong in a while. Everything here was so familiar he was almost tempted to simple put his feet up and accept it all.

But he couldn’t. He’d left the portal open in his home dimension. Stooping to tie his shoes at exactly the wrong moment had led him to thirty years of wandering, thirty years of wondering how his world had fared with the open boil of the portal attracting who-knows-what from the multiverse.

There was a creak outside his door. Ford looked at the door, waiting. No knock. No one tried the knob.

He held his breath.

Eventually, the steps crept back down the hall.

_ Assuming this dimension is nearly identical to my own, _ Ford wrote, I  _ should be able to find Fiddleford McGucket to assist me. Whether or not he will do so willingly is another matter. But as of now he’s my only hope. _

Ford shot the door another look as he closed the diary. He tucked it under the mattress this time, and remembered to take his glasses off before shutting his eyes.


	3. The Book Thief

“He married a _what_?”

“Calm down, that’s not even the worst thing someone’s married in this town.” Stan nonchalantly waved a spatula in his direction.

“It’s still a non-sentient animal, though, right? It’s not, like...a-a talking raccoon or something?”

Stan shook his head.

Ford slumped to the table. “I knew his exposure to the portal left him reeling, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“Actually, Grunkle Ford, it’s more due to the memory gun.” Dipper explained about the Society of the Blind Eye, and the log of McGucket’s deterioration. Ford’s heart broke.

“My god, Fiddleford.” He took his glasses off and scrubbed his face with his palms. “He was my only hope for achieving my goal.”

Stan cleared his throat.

“Oh...besides you, Stanley.” Ford gave him a grin that he hoped looked authentic.

“Grunkle Ford, what will you do if he doesn’t remember you?” Mabel asked as she separated marshmallows from their surrounding cereal and tossed them in her bowl.

Ford rested his temple on his hand. “I don’t know, sweetie. I'll just have to power through, I guess. The instability of the fluid circuit will—”

“Beep boop, I-am-a-science-robot,” Stan said, doing a little robot dance. He shook his head and scooted the eggs around the frying pan. “All this nerdy stuff is giving me a rash. Can we talk about something else?”

Ford thought for a moment.

“Are libraries still a thing?” he asked.

 

After breakfast, Ford went to the lab for a bit. He’d locked it down, just as a precaution, just in case…

He sighed.

It was terrible, not being able to trust family. He could tell Stan genuinely liked him and wanted him to be comfortable here. But there was something unwholesome about his behavior, something Ford couldn’t quite put his finger on just yet.

He sat in a swivel chair.

True, his departure would basically doom Stan to live the rest of his life without his brother. And being twins, that was probably a little worse than losing any other family member. But he’d had thirty years to build his own life and instead chose to live in his brother’s shadow. That wasn’t Ford’s fault.

Ford used the toe of his shoe to slowly turn the chair in a circle.

The carbon neutronic hexatrope was AWOL. He doubted he’d make much progress without it.

He had to go see Fiddleford. Had to.

So why was he down here?

Because, Ford realized, like Stan, he was reluctant to face reality.

This galvanized him, and he rose from the chair.

The kids had gone off after breakfast with a video camera and and the spectrometer he’d thrown together for out of spare parts. It made him smile to see them carry on the tradition of investigating the weird, so he let them go. They could run interference another day. Ford thought he was alone in the house until he ran into Stan, coming from the other direction with a pile of boxes under his arm.

“Oh, Ford. Didn’t expect to find you here.” He did not, in fact, sound even a bit surprised.

“Oh, ah, yes. I was—doing the thing, and, you know…” Ford trailed off, making a vaguely thoughtful face.

Stan stared at him.

“Must be nice to be all smart ‘n junk,” he said. His eyes were a curious blank again. “I was just getting out some of my old inventions. You’re not the only tinkerer in the family, you know.”

“You invented things? That’s great, Stanley!”

“Well, they probably weren’t as good as the spectromometer you made this morning,” Stan said with a flippant shrug, “but what do you expect? I never finished highschool.”

If he hadn’t been speaking in a dull monotone, that last sentence would’ve sounded slightly bitter. Instead, it just sounded eerie.

Ford smiled. “Well, I'd love to take a look at them sometime—”

Stan unceremoniously shoved them into his arms.

“...but I really need to go see Fiddleford,” Ford finished lamely.

Stan was peering at him again, scrutinizing him. “You want a ride? I can give you a ride.”

“Oh, ah, sure. Just let me…”

Ford carried the boxes back to the lab as quickly as he could. He came back dusting his hands.

Stan hadn’t moved from the spot.

“Um, Stanley?”

Stan blinked. “Oh, you meant _now_.”

“If you would.”

They piled into the car, whose springs complained worse than the bed. As they drove, something in Stan began to ease up. He showed a more human side as they drove around town, pointing out people and places. Ford found they matched up well with his own memories, and for a time, the two men shared a camaraderie.

“—and that’s where those two idiot police officers got stuck in the mud. Like, half an inch of mud.”

“Really? Couldn’t they have poured some sand behind the tires and backed out?”

“They weren’t in a car.”

Ford burst out laughing. Stan joined him after a beat. He did that when they were together, Ford noted, as if he were waiting for his cue.

“Well, this has been fascinating,” Ford said, wiping his eyes, “but do you think we could go see Fiddleford now?”

Stan abruptly stopped the car in the middle of the road.

“I have errands,” he said flatly, “I have to get some lightbulbs. And meat. Lightbulbs and meat.”

“Well, could you just drop me—”

“Gotta get to the store before it closes.” Stan put the car into reverse and floored it backwards. Ford winced as they came very close to hitting a man with a woodpecker on his arm. The man dove to the side in time. Ford watched him wave his fist angrily as they retreated.

Stan parked crooked in the middle of the aisle of the parking lot and got out, walking away before Ford could even unbuckle. He considered following Stan before he caught sight of the library off to the side.

Stan was an adult. He could manage well enough on his own, couldn’t he? Besides, by the time Ford turned to ask if he minded splitting up, Stan was already stepping through the store’s front doors.

 

The smell of a library was still comforting, even after all these years. Ford took a deep breath, the tension in his chest easing somewhat.

There were those blasted computers Fiddleford had predicted, and the monument-like copy machines that had replaced mimeographs. But there were still books, and Ford understood books.

He went immediately to the 530 section (thank _you_ , Melvil Dewey) and pored over the town’s neglected handful of physics books. He had a finger simultaneously in _A Brief History of Time_ and _The Duck goes Quark_ when he felt a tap on the shoulder.

“I'll move,” he whispered without looking up. The tap repeated itself.

Ford turned to find himself face-to-face with a stereotypical prospector.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Ford said, “this is the physics section. Gold panning should be a few aisles over.”

“Giddle gats magew!” the man laughed with a shrieking whistle voice, hamboning. He suddenly wrenched his body to a stop and cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” he said in a much more familiar voice, “I get these...fits.”

Ford’s mouth fell open. “Fiddleford?”

“The one and only.”

Ford went to enclose him in a hug, but stopped himself. “I don’t remember how our last exchange went. I have missed you Fiddleford, and I apologize for any action I may have taken that hurt you.”

“That’s Stanford Pines for you.” Fiddleford had a twinkle in his eye. “The only man I know with a form apology.”

He surprised Ford by wrapping him up in a startlingly strong hug. Ford returned it, feeling slightly guilty that this reunion made him more emotional than seeing Stanley.

“I have the most urgent news to discuss with you,” he whispered as they parted.

“If it’s about the gravity quakes, I'm already semi-there.” Fiddleford opened a suitcase computer, which had been updated from the primitive green-on-black.

“It’s more than just that.” In hushed tones, Ford explained how he had come to be in this Gravity Falls. Fiddleford nodded grimly.

“Just as I'd feared.” he spat to the side, making a ringing tone. “If the portal is operational again, that gives...you-know-what another opportunity to infringe on this world.”

“I'm trying to work on closing it, once and for all. I could really use your expertise, Fiddleford.” Ford paused. “I was told you had some...difficulties in the intervening years. There was an incident with a memory gun.”

Fiddleford waved his hand. “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee, I gots my memories right ‘ere.” he pulled out the bib pocket of his overalls to display a series of flasks with liquid inside. Ford frowned thoughtfully as he read the labels.

“Are there any that deal specifically with constructing the portal?”

“I'm working on that. There’s quite a few of them that I don’t care to view because they deal with—personal things.” Fiddleford twiddled his beard and looked from side to side.

“Ah. understandable. In the meantime I'm afraid I'll have to take preventative measures against the return of...you know.”

“Better start with yourself.”

“Oho, way ahead of you.” Ford knocked on the side of his head, making a metallic noise against his plate. Fiddleford chuckled.

“I wish we had time to catch up,” Ford said, the momentary bout of humor deserting him, “I wish we could just stand around and talk—”

“Bah.” Fiddleford waved his hand. “Science is always priority #1. You taught me that.”

Ford stole the physics books, guiltily assuring himself that he’d take good care of them as he stuffed them one-by-one into McGucket’s beard. Besides, the cards taped to the inner jacket that showed their borrowing history usually had just a single stamp, and that one was dated back in the eighties. Come to think of it, 46*\ Ford had probably been the last one to check them out.

That just felt weird.

Fiddleford handed the books off to him in the men’s room.

“And remember,” he hissed, “that beast could be watching us right now. Trust no one.”

“Not even you?” Ford asked sarcastically.

“Not even that feller.” Fiddleford pointed in the mirror. “Look at ‘im. His beard’s all scruffy-looking.”

A raccoon parted the hair in his beard and looked out. Fiddleford went crosseyed with rage. “He’s after mah wumman!”

As McGucket attacked the mirror like an angry parakeet, Ford guiltily crept out of the room.

Poor Fiddleford. He owed his own dimension’s Fiddleford a lengthy apology. And probably a beer or two.

His stomach dropped further as he exited the library. Parked across the front lawn was Stan’s burgundy car. Stan stood against the door, arms crossed, head angled down so that his glasses were once again rendered opaque by reflection.

“Got done at the store. Didn’t see you.” Stan spoke to the ground. “I thought you wanted to come with me.”

“Yes, well.” Ford coughed behind his hand. “I had to come here. To—steal some books.”

Stan looked up, eyes suddenly visible. He was a blank again.

“Stealing. Books?”

Ford held up _Life, The Universe, and Everything_ , flushing crimson. “No card, you see.”

After a long, tense moment, Stan cracked a small smile.

“Only you, poindexter,” he said, leaning forward so he could pop open the driver’s side door, “would steal books from a library.”

“Only you would drive a getaway car for a book thief,” Ford retorted.

Stan chuckled, sliding into his seat. “It’s not a getaway car if you don’t get in.”

Ford dashed to the other side. He made sure to shovel the books in first before he got in. Stan took his foot off the brake pedal and let the car roll, smiling mischievously as Ford hopped on one foot to keep up as he slid in the passenger seat. Ford scrambled to buckle as Stan made a highly illegal u-turn in front of the cops, who were currently playing with a magic 8-ball and didn’t even look up, and hit the road.

Stan whooped out the window. Ford grinned and pounded on the car roof, relieved at the distraction he’d created.

The good mood faded as they got closer to the shack, however.

“So, are you disappointed you didn’t meet your friend?” Stan asked accusingly.

“Well, I have these books,” Ford stammered. “That’s nearly as good as having another scientist.” It wasn’t an outright lie, so he technically wasn’t a bad person.

Was he?

Stan nodded stiffly as he turned into the driveway. “...listen. I got you something.”

Stan reached into the paper sack on the backseat and fished out a little bag. Ford squinted at the label.

“UCO’s? Unidentified Corn Objects? I didn’t even know they _made_ these anymore.”

“Yup. But they discontinued the cool ranch flavor. Something about petroleum additives? I dunno.”

Ford chuckled at the little bag. They even still had the unsuspecting hick farmer on the cover, levitating under the beam of a popped-kernel flying saucer as he examined a crop circle in the shape of an ear of corn. It was so good to see that some things truly didn’t change.

He looked up.

Stan wasn’t looking at Ford, or the bag. He was watching the kids, who had abandoned their investigation to run through a sprinkler on the lawn. Ford felt a sudden urgency come over him.

He latched onto Stan’s side in a hug.

“Thank you,” he said when he drew away, “I'm sorry I left.”

Stan looked like he was trying not to show emotion. “Well,” he said as he opened the door with a creak, “stay with me next time, okay?”

 

_Bad news. The portal is stalled indefinitely, until I can assemble the proper tools. My reunion with Fiddleford only served to remind me of the urgency of the situation. Bill could be watching anywhere, at any time._

Ford glanced futily at the corners of the room.

_The covert thwarting of my plan by 46*\ Ford’s brother only serves to underline this. Trust no one!_


	4. The Fishing Expedition

 

Ford stared hopelessly at the portal. The spectral galvanizer had been sitting on the panel beside him only just last night. Now it was gone.

That brought the total of missing tools up to six.

He had been religiously locking the doors, but as he discovered more and more integrity-compromising  animal burrows, Ford realized how futile it was. If not Stanley, then some subterranean animal with an eye for shiny things.

Ford sighed and buried his face in his hands.

He had done wrong in building the portal. No matter what he told himself, it had been the worst idea he’d ever had. And now that all he wanted to do was to make up for the mistake, he couldn’t.

He remembered how easy it had been for Cipher to seduce him with knowledge. How readily he had built the portal without once asking why.

Why did a supposed muse of science have to possess a body?

Why was there a large, sinister petroglyph of the triangle in the cave he’d found?

And why oh why oh why was Cipher interested in speaking only to Ford, and not any other scientific genius of the age?

He wondered how 46*\ Ford had dealt with the knowledge. Why hadn’t he taken immediate steps to shut down the portal?

...All these rhetorical questions weren’t getting him anywhere, that’s for sure.

Ford decided to distract himself. Maybe inventing a new lightbulb so Stan didn’t constantly run out of them, or—

His gaze fell on the pile of boxes.

Stanco. Stanley, despite apparently being the muscle to Ford’s brain, had been quite the prolific inventor. Ford felt a nagging curiosity itch the back of his head. He grabbed the first box off the pile.

“Rip-off,” he read to himself, “the bandage that will 100% NOT give you rashes, I repeat, NOT give you rashes.”

He isolated the rash-giving compound almost immediately. Ford sighed and shook his head fondly. Poor Stanley, separated from his other half, trying to emulate him in a bid to—

He squinted and readjusted his glasses.

The rash-giving compound was not necessary to the adhesive of the bandage. In fact, the adhesive worked better once divorced from its itchy component. He ran a whole battery of tests on it, trying to find out if it was necessary to any part of the bandage. It wasn’t. It wasn’t  even a by-product of the other parts of the bandage. For it to be present, it would have been added extraneously.

Ford squinted down at the bandages. Then over at the rest of the boxes.

The Sham Total. Ostensibly a space-age liquid absorber.

Ford tested it and found it truly contained microfibers that would hold generous amounts of liquid, making it an asset on any space flight.

It also stained his hands blue.

Ford wrung the dye from one and attempted to use it. It worked just fine.

The StanVac. “Sucks more than anything,” the label read. When Ford started it up, the suction was so strong it uprooted the metal floor panel it stood on. He scrambled for the stop button.

All of Stan’s products, from the Stan Army knife(contained a useful assortment of knives, but they all folded out blade first) to the Ziplock Zealer(once closed, created a thermal bond that could not be opened without ripping the bag) for a certain value of the word, worked. But they all had some small, fatal flaw. It was usually something unecessary, something that required an extra step to add it to the finished product.

Ford wondered. Was Stan really so short-sighted that he couldn’t see the picture?

Or…

Or, was it a deliberate act of self-sabotage?

He tried to put himself into Stanley’s shoes.

His home dimension’s father had been exacting, demanding things of little Ford he could not necessarily deliver. He wanted a tough, hard-fighting boy who could also make the family massive amounts of money with his smarts. Ford had been unable to please him on the one front, all too happy to disappoint him on the other.

Now, suppose there were two Stans. One was the intellect that would someday lift the family up from a mean existence. Where did that leave the other? Because Stanley had apparently adhered to Filbrick’s stereotype of what a man was, and he had still been unfavored. Perhaps disappointment was all Stan had ever known, and the thought of being anything on his own frightened him.

That was why he had lived under his brother’s shadow. That was why he needed Ford.

And Ford felt...sad for him.

He’d grown up an only child until his teen years. He knew what pressure felt like. He knew how scary it was stepping out from under his father’s shadow. But he had done it anyway, and he was a stronger person for it.

However, Ford admitted to himself, he hadn’t been kicked out of his childhood home for the science fair incident. The comparison wasn’t completely identical.

Perhaps he was being a bit unfair. Perhaps he should make a bit more than the cursory effort he’d been using so far to get to know Stan Pines.

 

Stan was scooping ice cream into a bowl.

“Oh my. I didn’t realize it was this late. What time is it?”

“11:30,” Stan said, nonchalantly shoving a spoonful of fudge ripple into his mouth.

Ford looked at the daylight outside. “Well, that’s...you’ll ruin your appetite.”

“Gee thanks, _mom_.” Stan rolled his eyes.

Ford touched a hand to his forehead, the other hand hovered in front of him. “I predict you’re going to get old and fat!”

Stan blinked a bit. “Hey, that’s better being old and...nerd.”

“I predict you have no good comebacks.”

“Well I predict a fist coming into your near future.”

“Too late, I already predicted it and sidestepped it.”

“What? No fair!”

They paused for a moment. Ford cracked first.

They laughed so hard Stan had to set his bowl on the counter before he dropped it.

“So I take it your little science adventure isn’t going so well,” Stan said as he wiped his eye.

Ford bit back an unkind reply and shrugged. “As well as one might expect.”

Stan did not looked pleased at the vague answer. He recovered the bowl. “Well, some of us have tourist traps to run. If you’ll excuse me, I left Soos in charge, and the poor guy gets all sweaty and shouty if he has to answer a lot of questions.”

“Stanley wait!”

Stan paused with his hand on the door. His eyepatch wrapped his forehead like a bandanna.

Ford figeted. “I was hoping...look, I haven’t seen you in thirty years. I don’t want to just re-hash old memories, I want to get to know the current Stanley. What have you been doing? How have you been living? What’s become of the town since I left? I’ve got a lot of gaps here, and I could use your help in patching them up.”

Stan still had his hand on the door. His top scoop of ice cream glooped down to the side, taking a chunk of magic shell with it.

“...you really mean that, Sixter?”

Ford snorted. “No, I'm really scamming you so I can steal all your fake cryptids.”

“Brother!” The hug ironed all the air out of his lungs. Ford returned it as best he could, his upper arms were pinned to his sides.

“You sure it’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, Soos gets a little sweaty and shouty, the kids will spritz him with water and stick him in the closet. They’ve done it before,” Stan said into his shoulder.

 

“...so you’ve been in jail  in _three_ different countries?”

“Yeah. would’ve been four, but Nicaragua just deported me. Total frame-up.” Stan hefted a good-sized rock into the pond, so it created a mini tidal wave.

Ford sought out smooth, round stones. He turned one over and over in his left hand. “I can’t believe you’ve done so much while I've been stuck inside most of my life. You ever think back on your life and go, ‘wow. I did that?’”

Stan was looking out over the pond. “I dunno. After a while it’s just...background noise. Not really important.”

Ford let fly with the rock. It did twenty skips before it sank. Stan slugged him on the arm, then remembered himself.

“Oh, sorry, I—”

Ford slugged him back. “Two for flinching,” he said, repeating the blow.

Stan was confused for a second, then grinned. “Whoa, I guess braniac has a little muscle to him after all.”

“I guess muscle-head has a little brain to him, too.” Ford gave him a noogie.

“Yeesh, don’t say that. It counts as incitement to a riot in this state.” Stan laughed and picked up a rock.

“It’s true, though. You spent thirty years teaching yourself complex physics from scratch.”

It was wrong. It was too unsubtle, and he knew the second it left his mouth. Stan did not react outwardly, but something inside him tightened.

“Oh you know,” he said, hurling the rock, “you left me plenty to go on.”

The rock missed the water entirely, braining a squirrel on the opposite side of the pond.

“Here. Let’s go do somethin’ else, I'm bored.” Stan stalked off without looking at Ford.

 

“You really have to take your shoes off before getting on an airplane, now?”

“Well, you would have to. I’m on the no-fly list.” Stan took a bite of his sausage.

“Really? Hey, did they ever implement that Star Wars defense system I proposed? I was really looking forward to that.”

Stan snorted. “Sorry to be the one to tell you, but the only thing that happened with Star Wars slapped on the title were some movies in the nineties.”

“They made _more_ Star Wars movies? Wow! I love Star Wars.”

Stan put a hand on his shoulder. “Then I have terrible news for you, my friend.”

They were walking down the main drag of the town, eating gravity dogs (like regular hot dogs but with all the condiments on the bottom) and sightseeing.

“I can’t believe so little has changed,” Ford said, shaking his head. “It’s almost like time has stopped here.”

“Yeah,” Stan said. “It is.”

Ford cleared his throat and looked away. Even when he tried to stay away from comments that led to moments like that, he still made them.

“There’s so much I need to catch up on,” he admitted, “not just science-wise. Do people still use betamax, or did VHS win? Did we solve the conundrum of Asimov’s three laws versus the military-industrial complex? Are my Battlestar Galactica cards still valuable? _What of Dungeons, Dungeons, & more Dungeons? _ **_What_** _?_ ”

He hadn’t meant to shout that last part. Stan hid slightly behind his hand.

“Keep it down, Sixter. It’s already weird that I'm walking around with someone who looks exactly like me.”

“ _Hey everybody! Old man Pines finally ripped himself off!”_

“Curse you random bystander!” Stan roared, shaking his fist.

Ford tugged his elbow and led him away.

“I’m sorry to be asking so many questions, Stanley.”

Stan blinked and pulled his elbow away. “Hey...it’s fine. I mean, it’s the first time in a long time you’ve needed me for something.”

Ford smiled at him. “Listen. Enough about the world. Tell me more of what you’ve been up to.”

 

“..and that’s when I bailed. Got a pretty good-sized scar from those antlers, let me tell you.”

Ford peered down at the photo album. “Really? How’d you get back to civilization?”

“I lashed myself to the bottom of an ox cart. Three of the bumpiest days of my life. I didn’t even realize I still had that with me until I got on the boat.” Stan pointed to a stone idol on the shelf beneath the register.

“Wow, you’re like Indiana Jones, but with even more dubious methods.”

“Hey, if they love their god so much, they should’ve defended their temple a little harder.” Stan gave a flippant shrug. “Anyway, what’re they gonna do, curse me?”

He winced and put his hand to a sudden phantom pain on his back.

Ford shook his head. “You’ve lived so much in the past thirty years. I’m surprised you even wanted me back at all. Your life has been much more exciting without me in it.”

Stan shrank into himself. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m just saying, you’re your own person Stanley. Be proud of that. Be proud of the life you’ve made for yourself. You’re more than just my shadow, okay?”

Ford meant for it to sound encouraging. Instead, Stan’s face fell even further.

“That wasn’t me living,” he said in a gravelly whisper, “that was me killing time. Waiting for you.”

Ford paused. The gulf that yawned between them was so wide he feared anything he might say would disappear into its depths, never hitting its target.

“I just want you to know I'm proud of you Stanley,” he said after much thought. “I’d never want you to abandon everything, just for my sake.”

Stan blinked away the moisture in his eyes.

“Awkward sibling hug?” he asked.

Ford smiled. “Is there any other kind?”

They patted each other's backs in synch.

 

Ford whistled as he made his way down to the lab. He looked up to the ominous form of the portal, like a wedge that sought to drive into the earth and tear apart everything he knew.

He smiled a bitter smile. From his jacket pocket, he took the spectral galvanizer he’d snuck out of Stan’s confiscated goods box and put it in a drawer. He locked the drawer. Then he left.


	5. Hide and Seek

_Entry #2453. 46*\ Ford’s brother is deliberately sabotaging my efforts. His psychological dependance on me is reaching disturbing levels. I fear he may do something drastic if he gets wind of my progress on the portal. I can no longer trust the integrity of any hiding place in the house, so I've reverted to my caches in the forest. Progress comes slow or not at all. Trust no one!_

 

“Bam! Another bulls-eye.” Stan whooped as his cooked spaghetti noodle stuck to the forehead of Gideon Gleeful’s cardboard cutout.

Ford chuckled, dropping his noodle behind his back and pressing it into the dirt with his foot. “You beat me again, Fiver. I don’t think you’re playing fair.”

“Aw, sure I am. Don’t you want a turn?”

Ford lifted his empty hands. “I’m out.”

“Whoops. Back to the colander.”

The kids were sorting the cooked spaghetti according to length.

“Grunkle Stan, shouldn’t we be eating this spaghetti? Seems kind of a waste.” Dipper eyed the noodles.

“Bah. We can eat spaghetti anytime, I bought a half-ton back in ‘87.” Dipper made a face. “What’s important is that Sixter here gets to play spaghetti darts. He’s thirty years out of practice,” Stan said, looping an arm around Ford’s shoulders.

“Well, maybe if we were using penne I might have a better chance.”

“What? Blasphemy.” Stan went to adjust the cutout. “Next you’ll be wanting bigger meatballs for the bonus round.”

Ford exchanged a look with the kids behind Stan’s back. Mabel tapped the middle of today's sweater, which bore a thumbs up.

“Grunkle Stan,” she said, tucking her hands in her sleeves, “are we almost done? I need a ride to Grenda’s house.”

Stan turned from giving li’l Gideon a noodle mustache. “That’s tonight?”

“Yeah. I told you, remember?” Mabel rolled her eyes. “I was supposed to show up with the glitter shadow and hair gel and we were going to watch _Dreamboy High_ and _Boombox Held Up in the Rain_.”

Ford had to hand it to her, she was good at romance on a moment’s notice.

Stan made a face. “Can’t this wait?”

“Grunkle Sta~an, it’s eighties night!”

“Also, I'd kinda like to check out the mall.” Dipper fiddled with his cap. “Grunkle Ford also plays D, D&D, and I was hoping to find a set there.”

Stan shot Ford a look.

Ford shrugged. “Don’t hang back on my account.”

“Grunkle Ford, could you watch Waddles while I'm gone?” Mabel smiled. She was a perfect actress. “I’m worried he might have the blues.”

“Mabel, I told you, pigs aren’t intelligent enough to get the blues.” Ford paused in thought. “I might rub his belly, though.”

Stan looked deprived again, but he hefted the keys. “Okay...I'll be back.”

“With meatballs?” Ford grinned as he scrubbed Waddles’ jowls with his fingertips.

Stan gave a half-hearted chuckle.

Ford watched the car labor down the drive and waited five minutes after it disappeared from sight before moving.

He packed a walkie-talkie. Dipper agreed to sound two cracks on the frequency when Stan was getting ready to return. He had anywhere from a half hour to all night, and he wasn’t willing to risk being caught.

Ford sprinted, adrenaline lending wings to his feet.

Fiddleford had sent him a message via woodpecker to come to the town museum. Ford assumed it was important. In his day, the museum was nothing but a collection of lies designed to bolster the image of the Northwest family.

Ford navigated the town, heart hammering as he peeked around buildings and sprinted through alleys.

The museum was deserted and all the lights were off. Ford lingered in the bushes outside, squinted through the darkened windows.

“Psst—Stanford!”

Ford jumped.

In a bush directly behind his, Fiddleford crouched with his banjo and a handheld computing device. Ford quickly joined him.

“I have to question the logic of meeting in such a public place, Fiddleford.”

“Shucks, nobody visits the museum except field trips and that creepy janitor. Asides, it’s the only place with a...memory...whatchacajigger.”

Though it was past closing time, the door wasn’t even locked. Which said a lot about both the museum and the town’s inhabitants.They walked through the empty building, steps echoing off the full size dioramas.

“Boy, this takes me back. Remember when we used to sneak into the computer lab after hours?”

“Sure do!” Fiddleford spat, the glob ricocheting off a chainsaw statue of Nathaniel Northwest into a spitoon. “I can smell the Pitt and UCOs now.”

“If you’re ever interested, I think my grand-nephew’s found a copy of Dungeons, Dungeons &more Dungeons.”

“Thanks, Fordsy, but my coordination ain’t what it used to. I doubt I could even roll a straight six on a good day.” Fiddleford looked down at his hands. “When did I get old?”

Ford put a hand on his shoulder. “We both did.”

“No, I mean literally, when did I get old? I don’t remember half my life.”

Ford coughed awkwardly into his hand. They hit the secret fireplace entrance and kept going, Ford having to stoop much more than Fiddleford, who appeared to have shrank in his old age.

They arrived at the Hall of the Forgotten. Memory tubes clustered every available surface in the room.

“All these memories, all these wasted years denying the truth.” Ford mused on a flask labeled ‘Shandra Jimenez—Toby’s 3rd proposal.’ “Do you think if we give these back to people, it will change the way the town works?”

“Doubt it.” Fiddleford scratched his beard. “Anyway, they’ve stopped forgettin’ all the weird things since we abolished the society. That’s the best we can do.” He grabbed Ford’s arm. “That’s how it’s got to be. No more lurkin’ in the shadows. We bring everything out into the light.”

Ford hesitated, then he thought of the portal. He nodded grimly.

While Fiddleford sorted through his memories, Ford looked at the flasks. There was a pile of Bud Gleeful, an entire mountain of Lazy Susan. He noted an absence.

“Did this society ever go after my brother?”

“Not that I know of. By the way, Fordsy, next time you might want to mention you have a brother.” McGucket said, reviewing footage of shrieking pterodactyl robot scattering a crowd.

There was no easy response to that, so Ford busied himself sorting through the memories. There was the mayor, the policemen, the guy who ran the docks—

Ford squinted.

Sticking out from the bottom of a pile was a tube that simply said ‘goodbye.’

Fiddleford shook his head and took a step back from the memory reviewer. “I can’ts goes no further with these, I have to find the rest.”

“Fiddleford—”

He dove nose-first into a pile of flasks. Ford winced.

Well. He could manage on his own, couldn’t he?

Ford set the flask in the socket and fiddled with the controls. It was an electrolytic fluid converter. Fairly straightforward, much like the desalination mock-up Fiddleford had built during their undergraduate days.

The memory was fuzzy. Ford turned a knob, squinting at the screen. When the picture suddenly jumped into clarity, he jumped as well.

A younger Stanford was looking back at him. His tie was undone and there were tears in his eyes. His shaking left hand held the memory gun to his temple. The scene lasted about ten seconds. Then it was over.

Ford shook too, wiping his face with the back of his hand. What the hell?

Fiddleford surfaced. “Got one!”

Ford snatched the flask from the socket and hid it in his pocket.

Mcgucket gave him a concerned, if cockeyed, look. “You okay, Stanford?”

“Oh yeah, just...poked my finger.” Ford pretended to blow on his finger.

Fiddleford peeled the bandaid from his beard and stuck it on Ford’s finger, giving it a little pat. Ford grinned sickly at him, thankful that he didn't really have an open wound.

Ford sat silently as his friend reviewed his own memories. The flask hung heavy in his coat, sloshing with the threat of the past.

He’d seen the beginnings of the Blind Eye in his own dimension, of course. He had never guessed in a million years that it was Fiddleford’s doing, he thought it was yet another nefarious plot by Cipher.

Ciper…

Learning the truth about him had been horrible. But Ford had come away from it with his sanity intact. What had been so horrible that 46*\ Ford had needed to seal it away? Had he seen something, done something in league with Cipher that it warranted such treatment?

Ford gripped the flask. Ohhh, this was bad.

Two sharp cracks sounded on the walky-talky. Ford jumped up, icy fear trickling down his back.

“FiddlefordIhavetogoI’msorryI’lltalktoyoulater!” he called in one breath as he ran out the hall.

Even cutting through yards and skipping over fences, Ford felt too slow. His age weighed on him, physical fitness be damned he was tired.

He had never felt so relieved to see his own house. The car wasn’t in the driveway yet. Ford nearly twisted his ankle vaulting over the bottomless pit. That blasted goat saw him and tried to butt him. Ford dodged at the last second, leaving him to run into a totem pole. Ford hit the porch and stuck the landing.

“Safe!”

He noticed Soos, who had been standing off to the side of the porch the whole time, sucking on a juicebox.

“Pretty sure you can’t play hide and seek with just one person, dude.”

Ford was so out of breath he didn’t bother trying to answer. He just flopped down on the raggedy old couch, relief flooding through him.

A door creaked and a redheaded girl came sauntering casually around the corner.

“Okay, Mr. Pines, I re-stuffed the Troutacorn  and moved the dot on that price tag, can I—”

She did a double take.

“Oh...right. Sorry Wendy, I don’t think anyone told you, but Mr. Pines has a super-secret brother who got yanked out of a portal and looks just like Mr. Pines.”

Wendy gaped for a second.

Then she shrugged.

“Whatever,” she called over her shoulder

 

Stan slammed the front door. “Yeesh. Never getting that song out of my head.”

“Disco girl, coming through—”

“Enough, Dipper.” Stan looked over to where Ford sat on the recliner, Waddles’ head snugly resting on his leg. “Don’t you two look cosy.”

“He may not be capable of getting the blues, but he’s a bright little guy.” Ford scratched the pig’s jowls.

Earlier, he’d taken off his jacket and combed his hair to help the illusion that he had been home all along.

Stan stared, dissecting the cozy scene with his eyes. Ford tried not to sweat.

“How’s Mabel’s sleepover? You know, if they really wanted to throw an authentic 80’s party, they should’ve asked us.”

Stan snorted. “As if. I tried telling them about the Iran-Contra deal, her eyes crossed so hard they nearly merged.”

“Maybe you should’ve started with something simpler, like lite brite.” Ford’s chuckle died into an awkward silence.

“So...did you ever find that...carbon...deely you were looking for?”

Ford sighed. He thought of 46*\ Ford’s teary face, Fiddleford’s fractured memory. _No more lurking in the shadows_. He had to do it.

“Yes I did, Stanley.” Ford stood. “I took it from that box you labeled ‘old junk to throw away—nobody look in here.’”

“You went through my stuff?” Stan actually had the nerve to look incensed.

“Well, I had to, to get my tools back.”

Stan blanched.

“Yes. _Tools_.” Ford shook his head. “You didn’t even hide them that well. It’s like you’re _trying_ to get caught!” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “I genuinely like spending time with you Stanley, I do. But you have to stop lying!”

Stan shrank from the accusation. “Well, if you would stop ignoring your family for this science junk, I wouldn’t have to! You’re selfish, Ford!”

“Selfish?” Ford blinked. “I’m selfish? Stanley, how can you say that after you’ve repeatedly sabotaged my efforts to remove a dire threat to the universe! We’re lucky something catastrophic hasn’t already happened!”

“Oh sure, yell at me.” Stan sniffed. “If that’s all the thanks I get for pulling you out of the portal—”

“You’re being childish, Stanley.”

“I am not being childish! I hate this family! I’m going to my room!” Stan stomped up the stairs.

Ford rubbed his temple, where a migraine was already beginning to throb.

 

_My suspicions about Stanley were completely correct. He is deeply troubled. What’s more, I've found evidence that 46*\ Ford may have done something so heinous he wiped his memory. I don’t know how to proceed, other than continue my work on dismantling the portal. This dimension is more dangerous than I initially surmised. I may not even be able to trust Fiddleford’s waning intellect._

Ford looked at the flask.

_I remember a time when science brought the joy of discovery. I thought nothing based in science could be inherently bad. Well, I've had a thirty-year lesson proving that’s not the case. Trust no one!_

“Great-uncle Ford?”

Ford immediately snapped the journal shut and tucked it under his arm.

“Speaking.”

Dipper stood at the back door, silhouetted in the light from the house.

“A-are you working on some science stuff?”

“No,” Ford lied, standing so his body hid the book.

“Oh. w...well, I wanted you to know, I found your last journal. I mean, the other Ford’s last journal. It wasn’t quite finished, so I wrote on it. I never got around to asking if that’s okay.”

Ford blinked. Then a warm smile spread across his face.

“Dipper, of course it’s okay. Someone has to document the weird phenomena in this town, and it might as well be a Pines.”

Dipper laughed unsteadily, ruffling the back of his head with his hand. “So...whatcha doin’?”

“Just taking in the night air. I’ll be in in a minute.”

“‘Cause, well, I found that Dungeons, Dungeons and more Dungeons board in the mall.”

“Ohoho, I am _all_ over that.” Ford gave him a little wave. “Go ahead and set up. I’ll be right there.”

Ford watched the boy go in, the screen door creaking with age. Then he opened the book to his last entry. _Trust no one_.

He sighed.

The hollow tree trunk was still available. Ford stashed the journal there, unmindful of the silhouette that pressed against the windows of the house behind him. It was gone by the time he turned around.


	6. Past Tense

Ford hadn’t had a dream with Cipher in it for a while. It had lulled him into a false sense of security. Now, as he waded through dream-grass on a moonless night, he realized how stupid he’d been to relax. He knew without being able to see it that the field he walked in contained a crop circle in the shape of Bill Cipher. That same dream omniscience told him that there was a boat at the end of the field and if he reached it, he would be able to sail away from the danger. But the grass was so deep it was like his feet didn’t even exist, and he found himself walking in circles. Lazily, the thought came to him that if he used the path of trampled grass as a landmark, he should be able to correct his course.

That was when the spaceship came.

It wasn't the traditional flying saucer. Instead, it was golden pyramid bearing an eye hieroglyph on the outside. It hovered over to where Ford stood and emitted a beam of golden light.

Ford sank down, covering his head with his hands. He could feel gravity’s grip loosen as he lost contact with the earth.

The beam drew him up until he could look down on the terrible shape of the crop circle.

_“?ysdroF ,aloc emos tnaW”_

Ford’s eyes flew open.

He lay on the bed, one arm tucked at an odd angle between his body and the wall.He put on his glasses and slid his legs out of the covers. He put his coat on over his undershirt and boxers, rather than dress himself. The night wasn’t too cool, and he wasn’t going far.

He’d put the memory flask in the same cubby as the seventh journal out in the woods. He’d thought long and hard about asking Fiddleford about it but…

But…

Fiddleford had made the gun. Fiddleford had founded the society that held the town in its oblivion haze. Fiddleford had let 46*\ Ford use the gun on himself.

Ford sighed and sat down on the bed. He was being paranoid.

Was he?

Yes, he was.

Except…

Ford rubbed his eyes with the fingertips of his left hand. His useless sixth finger curled in synchronicity with his pinky, as if it, too, ached to be useful.

The kids were too young to understand the full extent of the horror.

Stan was actively working against him.

Fiddleford was of questionable integrity.

Trust no one.

Ford stood up again. He crossed silently over the bedroom floor and turned the knob of the door slowly so that the click was nearly soundless. He could tell even before opening it that there was a weight leaning against the door. Ford opened it a crack, just enough to look.

Stan was sleeping sitting against Ford’s door, blanket half-covering the dirty wifebeater that was his sleepwear.

Ford slid the door closed slowly so as not to jog Stan’s head. He released the knob and crossed slowly to the bed again. He dropped his coat on the floor and didn’t bother taking off his glasses.

Trust no one.

Ford got into bed.

 

“You actually got the unicorn hair?”

Mabel, smeared with rainbow blood, gave him a grin. “Yup. And tears, and blood, and...whatever else you might need.”

Ford gave her a half-hearted smile as he accepted the hank. “Well, that’s just great, Mabel. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Thanks, I didn’t know I had it in me either.” Mabel giggled viciously.

Dipper and Ford exchanged a look.

“I’ll just get the glue,” Dipper said, tugging his hat so it hid his eyes.

Ford separated out the unicorn hairs as Mabel went to wash off the grime of the day.

Stan all-too-casually entered the room and popped open the fridge. The mere action set the hairs on Ford’s neck to rise.

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

Ford continued sorting hairs. Stan popped open a Pitt cola and took a swig.

“How’s it going?”

“I’m enacting a protective barrier around this house, to guard against invasion.” Ford did not mention he was doing so because when he went to the lab that morning, all of last night’s work had been undone. Some of the previously-loosened bolts were so tight he had stood on the wrench and still not budged them.

“That a fact?” Stan sipped his cola. If he was even a tiny bit ashamed of it, he wasn’t showing it.

Ford lined up the long strands.

“You want some cola, Ford?”

The question set off panic alarms in his brain, though he couldn’t articulate why.

“Ford...you okay?”

Ford realized he had stopped sorting hairs, laying his palms flat on the table as he hyperventilated. He tried to shrug it off.

“Nothing. No thank you, Stanley.”

Stan did not reply. He came closer, and rested his hand on Ford’s back.

“I’m worried about you, Sixter.”

The nickname was what kicked it off. The sabotage, the lies, they were the gunpowder. The nickname was the fallen spark. Ford flashed back to years of Crampelter and the others taunting, mocking, isolating him from other children with that name. Now here was Stanley, smothering Stanley, trying to sabotage his independence, using the same hateful word. A tiny explosion happened behind his placid expression.

Ford stood up from the table.

“Really?” he asked vehemently, “because I'm worried about you too, _Fiver_. I’m worried that you’re sleepwalking.”

Stan gave him a puzzled look.

“Yeah. Sleepwalking. Because that is the _only_ acceptable reason for you to be trespassing into my lab!” Ford jabbed an accusatory finger at him. “The only other explanation is that you’re deliberately screwing with my work, but no, that couldn’t be, could it? Even _you_ couldn’t be that selfish.”

Stan backed up. His eyes were big. “Look, I—”

“Oh, this should be good. Give it to me, Stanley, give me your sales pitch. Here, let me start you off: Ford, I was in your lab because…” Ford flung his arms wide. “Well? Let’s hear it. I was hunting a magical money-fairy and she led me down a rabbit hole? I thought this was opposite day and decided to destroy hours of effort? I was in a trance and thought the portal was that rigged pinball machine? Well?!”

Stan was up against the fridge.

“I just...” he said faintly.

Ford waited, arms crossed.

Stan lowered his shoulders. He actually had the gall to look hurt.

“I don’t see why you have to keep messing with that,” he said in a shaky voice, “you’re back now. That’s what matters.”

Ford tore at the hair on his temple. “Stanley, I'm not back. I was never here! I’m not your brother! And somewhere, deep down inside, you must know that.”

“Ford—”

“Say it!” Ford bellowed, “say ‘you’re not my brother, Ford.’”

Stan blinked. His eyes were wet.

“Say it or I'm leaving.”

“Sorry, Ford,” Stan said. His voice was thick.  He raised his arms, like he was going in for a hug. “I’m sorry I made you go away. Just stop being mad at me.”

Ford’s rage cooled almost instantly. He slid back into his chair, sinking his fingers through the hair at his temple. It was like talking to a child.

“I’m not mad at you, Stanley,” he said in measured tones. “I am, however, very frustrated.”

“I can help.” God, he just wouldn’t _stop._ “I can make it better, Ford, just tell me what to do.”

“Stay away from me, Stanley.” It came out harsher than Ford had expected. “Stay out of the lab, stay out of my business, and stay on your side of the house. Run your little trinket shop. Don’t meddle with things beyond your understanding. If you can do that, that would help me.”

There was no reply. Ford looked up. The kitchen was empty.

He sighed and turned back to the unicorn hairs.

 

Dipper slathered on the last hair. Symbols flared as an iridescent bubble enveloped the house. Ford breathed a little easier once it was safely contained.

There was a tug at his hand.

He looked down, to find Mabel uncharacteristically concerned. She was twiddling the lava lamp on her sweater.

“Grunkle Ford, what happened to Grunkle Stan?”

Ford tried to look innocent. He smiled. “I dunno, sweetie. Why, what’s the matter?”

“He went and sat in his car and turned on mariachi music really loud. He’s been there for three hours.”

Ford blanched. “Well, ah...we sort of...got into a little argument.”

“Really? Then I think what you two broken little teacups need to do is hug it out.”

“Oh, Mabel. Would that everyone had your gentle spirit.” Ford put his hand on her head. “It’s not that simple. Stan won’t accept reality. And he’s...doing things. Unhealthy things.”

“Is there something I could do to help?” Dipper shyly approached, capping the glue.

Ford smiled and extended his other hand. “You’ve both already helped so much.” He swung both their hands back and forth. “I hate to ask any more of you.”

Dipper ducked behind the brim of his cap again. “Well, I was wondering...since we helped you, could I...could I get your opinion on my notes?”

Ford smiled. “Of course.”

Ford accepted book 3 and flipped through it. As Dipper explained the new phenomena they had recorded over the summer, Ford’s eyes fell by chance on a fragment of a phrase: _find him._

Ford blinked and started at the beginning of the paragraph.

_The machine was meant to create knowledge but it is too powerful! The device, if fully operational could tear our universe apart!_

That part was familiar. The next part wasn’t.

_...However, I have little choice. He is out there, somewhere, and this portal is the only way I will be able to find him._

There was another thing. Ford’s handwriting slanted to the left. This writing slanted to the right.

“—so then we stuck  the crystal on the lens of a flashlight—”

“How long have you been using this book?” Ford asked urgently.

Dipper was taken aback. “All summer. It’s gotten us through a lot of messes.”

“And who had the others?”

“Well, for a while Lil’ Gideon had the second one, then Grunkle Stan had them both, then I loaned the third one to him for a while—”

“And did he say anything about the journal?”

“No, actually. For a long time he pretended the supernatural didn’t even exist.”

Ford stared at the journal, with its strange, even-fingered hand.

“May I borrow this for a bit?”

Both twins looked at him.

“Why?”

Ford looked into their innocent faces and felt a pang.

“Nothing, just…” he smiled wearily, “I wanted to go over your notes from the summer. You’ve seen some things even I didn’t get to.”

Dipper puffed with pride. Mabel still looked a little dubious, so Ford squeezed her shoulder.

“It’ll just be for a while. You two run along, now.”

 

_There is something very wrong with 46*\ Ford’s brother. He is dangerously reluctant to face reality. The level of denial he has is too extreme for his supposed actions. If I didn’t know any better, I'd think that he didn’t merely knock his brother into the portal._

_If I didn’t know any better, I'd think…_

Ford stared off into space, pen hovering in mid-air.

No.

No way.

But…

He reviewed every time Stanley had spoken about his missing brother. How careful his language had been. He’d ‘banished’ Ford. ‘Gotten rid’ of him. 'Made him go away.'

Ford’s hands started to shake.

It made scary amounts of sense. It made more sense the more he thought about it.

Of course Stanley would be in copious amounts of denial. Killing a loved one, and a twin at that...thirty years unable to accept the reality. Thirty years of guilt and loneliness spiraling into mania.

Ford shifted his legs so that he sat up on the edge of the bed.

He needed answers. Answers that even Fiddleford couldn’t supply. That meant tapping into an unlikely source.

 

“I dunno, Ford dude.” Soos scratched his chin. “Mr. Pines trusts me with a lot. I’m like his main trustee.”

Ford sighed and rubbed his forehead. “That’s just it, Jesus, it’s because he trusts you that I need your help. I know you care a great deal for Stanley, but the children could be in danger.”

Soos’s body language changed completely. “Dipster and M-dog? How’re they in danger?”

“Oh, um.” Ford thought a moment. “You remember the events leading up to the portal? Well, like that only...times ten.”

Soos’s eyes were wide. “Ten times? That’s like...ten bigger.”

“Yes. That.” Ford cleared his throat. “So you see my problem? Stanley won’t accept the reality of the danger. So I...I need something to convince him.” That wasn’t anywhere near the truth. God, he was such a liar.

But it was for science.

Soos furrowed his brow and nodded. From the loop on his belt, he retrieved the office key.

 

Ford wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. A box that said, ‘forbidden memories to throw away—nobody look in here’? He patted walls and tried decorations, searching for some kind of hidden compartment. He found a box full of Stan's cast-off IDs, old aliases of his many failed enterprises.

The box also held an article that roared “Stan Pines dead.” Ford gaped as he scanned it. Fiery car crash. Had that been how he’d gotten rid of 46*\ Ford? But then why all the business with the portal? Every clue he found just deepened the mystery.

Ford returned the IDs and continued searching the room.

He nearly tripped over the box.

It was an old cardboard box that buckled at the corners, waterstained at the bottom and fuzzy where it had rubbed against furniture. The dust was thick on the top, probably no one had even glanced its way in many years.

It was very conspicuously inconspicuous.

Ford tugged the flaps apart and coughed at the dust cloud it raised.

At the very top, there was a paper. Ford picked it up.

A crude drawing of a boat floated on crayon waters, 'Stan ‘o War' scrawled in a child’s hand. Ford lowered it and looked down.

Old papers. School things, maybe legal papers.

This could be promising.


	7. Present Tense

Ford listened. Outside, mariachi music still blared in the yard. The dry sound of Soos sweeping guarded the doorway.

He couldn’t help but feel exposed here. He considered taking the box down to the lab, but its absence would probably be more conspicuous than missing dust.

Ford paged through the papers. The first few layers weren’t that important.  School papers. Drawings. Ticket stubs.

Ford found a rumpled piece of construction paper.

“My craytiv riting xersiz” it said in two-inch-high letters.

Beneath it, it said “my brother.”

Ford adjusted his glasses.

“My brother is so cool. Hes smart like me and he has six fingers. Also hes left handed, cuase hes my opposite twin. Somday we will sail a ship arownd the world and descover new things. We will call it the Stan o War.”

Ford smiled, despite himself.

The paper had a ten out of ten. “Very creative” the starburst sticker on the corner screamed. Ford sifted a little deeper and pulled out another paper.

This one had a crude drawing of himself, with six looping fingers on each hand.

“My brother is the coolest,” this one read in slightly better english, “we went out xploring and found a cave with a lost treasure in it. Then Crampelter came by and we licked him in a fight. Someday we will be famous xplorers.”

Red pen underlined this one. In the margins, more red pen cooly said, “we need to leash that imagination.”

Ford nodded fondly. Stanley, always letting his imagination getting ahead of itself.

His eyes wandered to the top of the paper. He squinted.

That couldn’t be right.

Behind that was a class photo. Mrs. Hornwelter’s fourth grade students, arranged in a tier according to alphabetical order. With a sinking sensation, Ford studied what the photo held.

More importantly, what it didn’t.

He shuffled through more papers. Time went by quicker. Now he was in highschool, college. Failed patents. Marriage licenses quickly followed by divorce papers. A psychological picture was beginning to take shape. Stan’s whimsy wasn’t the behavior of a harmless eccentric, it was the coping mechanisms of a man who had become stuck in childhood.

He came to the bottom of the pile. There was a box that made a liquid sound when he jarred it. Ford opened it up.

Flasks lay neatly in a row. They were organized alphabetically, from “Stanford Pines - Arrival in the Falls” to “Stanford Pines - portal mishap.”

Ford was beginning to shake again.

 

It was dark. Ford felt like a thief, creeping into his own lab under cover of night. Of course, it wasn’t really _his_ lab, was it? He was an intruder in this world, and never had he felt it so keenly as he did right now.

He’d spent the past few hours at the museum, using the memory reviewer. A sense of unfathomable horror had crept over him as he reviewed the wreckage of 46*\ Ford’s life.

He had to end it all. Before anyone else got hurt.

The portal sat in the dark, hatefully triangular. He felt the urge to just take a crowbar to it.

But no. There was a procedure to follow.

Ford picked up the carbon neutronic hexatrope, took two steps towards the portal, and froze.

The freezing was entirely involuntary.

What Ford had taken as an overhead lamp now sent a beam of sickly violet light down on him, locking him in place. Ford gasped in surprise, twisting this way and that. He still had very limited movement in his extremities, but not enough to get leverage. His whole body tingled as if it had fallen asleep. With the pins-and-needles sensation came a steady pressure that kept him from collapsing onto the floor. He hovered in midstep, balancing on the ball of one foot.

“ _Entry #2453; 46*\ Ford’s brother is deliberately sabotaging my efforts. His psychological dependence on me is reaching disturbing levels. I fear he may do something drastic if he gets wind of my progress on the portal.”_

The voice echoed out from the dark of the lab. Ford’s panicked gaze darted about, trying to find the source. It sounded like—

“ _There is something very wrong with 46*\ Ford’s brother. He is dangerously reluctant to face reality._ ”

Stan stepped out of the shadows. He had removed his fez, and his jacket was rolled up at the sleeves. He held the #7 journal, a fact that filled Ford with terror.

Stan snapped the book shut. His face was a blank riddle.

Calmly, he set the book on a nearby panel. Then he opened his jacket. Resting snugly in an inner pocket was another red journal with six equisize fingers. This one had a number four on the hand. Stan opened it, jotted down a few lines, then returned it to its pocket.

“Stan,” Ford began.

Stan appraised him.

“I just don’t get it,” Stan said, shaking his head. He approached Ford, walking almost mechanically. If he had been capable of it, Ford would have shrank back.

Stan came to a stop a foot from Ford’s paralyzed body.

“I don’t get it,” he repeated. “I did everything right this time. I took you from a place that didn’t already have a Stanley. I tried to give you all the things you missed out on. Why are you being so stubborn?”

Shock glued Ford’s tongue to the top of his mouth.

“I worked so hard all these years to get you back. I even tried replacing you. Didn’t work out too well, stupid copy machine never worked right. Nothing works right when you’re not around.” Stan looked mournfully at his feet for a moment. “I sacrificed so much, and I don’t think you’ve ever really appreciated it, Stanford.” Stan jabbed a finger in Ford’s face.

Ford tried not to flinch.

“And it's not enough you won’t be my Ford, no, you have to take all I have left. You turned the kids against me. You turned my Soos against me. You think I don't notice these things? Mabel never plans an eighties night on a weekday. And the front of my office hasn’t been swept since the Reagan administration.” Stan frowned and adjusted his part as he looked at Ford, like he was primping in a mirror. “You take my family, you take my help. You even used my hiding places. It’s like you were _trying_ to get caught.” He shook his head disapprovingly.

“Stan,” Ford said in measured tones, “I have something very important to tell you. I would like to be free to move so I can illustrate on a chalk board.”

Stan folded his arms. “Really? Or do you want to give me the old left hook and abandon me again?”

“Stan—”

“Bet you couldn’t wait to run off and leave me, huh? Some brother you turned out to be!”

Ford flushed. “I. Am not. Your brother!” he snarled.

Stan’s face fell. Then it resumed its hardness.

“Well,” he said, “if you’re going to be that way…”

Ford’s anger cooled to fear. “Wait! What’re you doing?”

Stan was walking to the portal array. With a few taps he started up the process.

“You crazy idiot, you’re going to kill us all!”

“We didn’t die last time!”

“By pure chance,” Ford shouted, “the more you activate that thing, the weaker the walls of reality get! We’re headed towards a catastrophic meltdown! It’s not a matter of _if,_ Stan, it’s a matter of _when!”_

“So I'll stop using it after I get what I want.”

Ford bit back the very vicious truth that leapt to his tongue. “But what if you never do, Stan? What if you fail?”

Stan’s back was to Ford, but even so Ford could see him shift.

“I’m used to it,” Stan said tightly.

While he worked away on the console, Ford’s mind raced. There had to be a way to talk him down from this. Had to. But Ford’s mind was a desperate mess. Nothing he’d ever faced prepared him for this moment. His mental processes had fallen into a kind of jumbled panic, spitting out disaster scenario after disaster scenario. In all his calculations, he found very few ways that this situation could get any worse.

_“It came from down here, I'm sure of it.”_

Both men paled.

“Children!” Ford called, “don’t come down here! It’s dangerous!”

The elevator whirred into motion.

Stan scrambled across the floor to hit the cancel button. Too late, the elevator settled to the ground level and opened up.

Dipper and Mabel gaped, turning back and forth between Ford entrapped in a beam and Stan punching the elevator button with a guilty look on his face.

“This is totally not what it looks like.”

“Children! You need to leave.” Ford struggled to bully his muscles into fighting the beam. “I’ll take care of this.”

“Great uncle Ford!” Dipper reached into his vest pocket and brought out a small flashlight with a crystal fixed to the lens. “We got your back on this!”

Stan’s face registered betrayal for a moment. Then he became weary.

“Kid...I took the batteries out of that days ago.”

Dipper gave a panicked look at the flashlight. The switch clicked, nothing happened.

Mabel pulled out the grappling hook. “Well, he’s not the only one who came prepared!” She fired it, making the hook ricochet off several surfaces before wrapping harmlessly around the StanVac.

“Hey, don’t make me deal with both ‘a you!” Stan caught them by their scruffs. “Now, you kids beat it! We’ve got grownup stuff to deal with.”

“You’re reactivating the portal again, aren’t you?” Dipper gave a futile kick. “Ford said that would be a catastrophe.”

“Jeez, are you people in love with that word or something?” With a grunt, Stan lifted them both up to coat-hook height and hung them by their collars. Dipper grunted with outrage, pinwheeling his legs. Mabel started chewing on her sweater.

Stan crossed his arms and shook his head at them. He turned back to Ford.

“See what you did?”

“What _I_ did? Stan, you’ve gone insane.”

Stan cringed. “Don’t call me that. At least I know when to cut my losses.”

The blood drained from Ford’s face. “Wh...what do you mean by that?”

Stan didn’t answer. Instead he went back to the portal array.

“You can’t! Even you can’t be that selfish!”

“Grunkle Ford, what’s going on?” Mabel’s eyes were teary. “Why is Grunkle Stan doing this?”

“Sure ask the genius what I want.” Stan hit a few keys. The symbols around the portal lit up. “Why would I know anything?”

Ford clenched his jaw. “Children, your uncle hasn’t been telling you the whole truth. He’s the one who created the portal.”

Dipper gaped. “Grunkle Stan?”

Stan turned to them with a hardened look. “No. I told you. My brainy brother Stanford built it.”

“It’s all been a lie!” Ford shouted. “You saw his ID cards, didn’t you? How many fake identities he had?”

Stan’s chest was heaving. His face was trying to hold its stoicism as he turned dials and fiddled with knobs.

“You never had a twin brother! You built it to look for a dimension with a Stanford in it because you’ve gone completely insane!”

Both twins were completely awestruck.

“So...wait...you’re saying...Stanford Pines never existed?” Dipper asked.

“No, I'm saying _Stanley_ pines never existed!”


	8. A Tale of Two Stans

Stan turned to Ford, tears of fury streaming down his face. “You shut your mouth!”

The children dangled like fish at the end of a line.

“I’m sorry, I think I misheard you.” Mabel laughed nervously. “Did you just say there’s no such thing as Grunkle Stan?”

Ford looked Stan straight in the eye. “Think about it, kids. Has anyone in your family, even once, mentioned another brother to you?”

“Yeah but—”

“Whose name is on the deed? Stanford Pines. Who did your parents call to send you here? Stanford Pines. There was never a person called Stanley Pines, not ever. He—” Ford motioned with his chin, “—made him up.”

Stan had dropped his arms to his sides. His eyes wobbled with tears.

“That’s not true,” he said in a thick voice, “I have a brother.”

“Yes. You have _one_ brother, Sherman Hemsley Pines. His grandchildren are currently witnessing your breakdown over there.” Ford nodded at the children.

Stan shook his head loosely, like a toddler. “It’s not true,” he said in a cracking voice. “W-we went on adventures and we played games—”

“You played them. By yourself.”

“But I remember!” Stan clenched fists in his hair.As the skin reddened Ford noticed scars, very faint, running up the sides of his hands, as if something had been surgically removed long ago. “I remember Glass Shard Beach and the science fair, and...and…” Stan’s eyes widened as he roamed over the blank patches in his mind.

Ford shook his head. Little by little, he was getting used to the beam. If he stalled Stan long enough, maybe he could free himself.

“You created him because you were lonely,” he said, “I know. I was lonely too. I had a father who I could never impress. I was isolated from other children. I know how little it would take to slip into a dreamworld where I had someone to do everything with.” His tone took on a gentler cast. “But they made you pack him away, didn’t they?”

Stan’s shoulders slumped.

“They made you banish him. I saw. I watched the memories. How long have you been using that gun? You’ve seen the side effects, you saw what it did to Fiddleford. Was it really so terrible it was worth risking your brain?”

Stan didn’t answer.

It was, Ford had to admit, fairly terrible. He had seen it all: that first activation of the portal that sent Stan slamming into the opposite wall, irreparably injuring his vocal chords. Stan resignedly sweeping the severed arm and ear that had emerged from the portal into a bin, the arm clothed in a sleeve that matched his own labcoat. Stan, with tears in his eyes, holding his paper copy’s head against the stove burner until he went up. Stan fighting his own doppelganger until experiment #210 fell, regaining its original form in death. Stan combing his hair and adjusting his tie in the mirror again and again, chasing for some meaning in his reflection. Failure, pain, and loneliness, loneliness, loneliness.

But all that did not necessarily a villain make. What had happened? Something was still knocking around inside that skull of his, something he hadn’t removed with the memory gun.

“Let me get this straight.” Dipper cleared his throat. “Grunkle Stan was Stanford pretending to be Stanley pretending to be Stanford? So you’re both...basically the same guy?”

“For want of a nail, yes.” Ford nodded. “Our paths diverge in a few key places, notably around highschool. Stan’s life never really seemed to pick up after that pivotal failure.”

“So...Grunkle Stan?”

Stan was staring blankly at the ground.

“Gotta finish,” he mumbled, straightening his back. “Gotta make it right.”

Oh dear. Ford tensed his muscles. He really didn’t have enough strength to break free yet. If Stanley got the portal operational...

“I don’t get it. If Grunkle Stan was the imaginary one, why is he the one we’re talking to right now?” Mabel tilted her head.

“Years of guilt and loneliness, coupled with the memory gun’s side effects. He grew to hate being Stanford Pines, so much so that he ‘got rid of him’ like they made him do to his imaginary brother.” So close. So very close. “So what you want is impossible, Stan, like I've always said.”

“I have to get Stanford back!” Stan turned suddenly, tears streaming down his blank face. “I have to make it right again!”

“You _are_ Stanford Pines!” Ford growled. “You want to find him? He’s already here! What could be so terrible you keep denying the truth!”

Suddenly, all the sound fell away. Color drained from the world around them, leaving it the desolate landscape of Ford’s nightmares.

“Oh...no,” Ford said.

“YEAH, STANNY-BOY, WHAT’S SO TERRIBLE YOU HAD TO USE THE MEMORY GUN ON YOURSELF?”

Like a bad penny, Bill Cipher dropped from a swirling vortex just above their heads. He chuckled as he looked from the children dangling next to a fez, to Ford  writhing angrily, to Stan robotically working away. He dropped lower so that he hovered just above Stan’s shoulder.

“THAT’S IT,” he crooned, “YOU JUST KEEP WORKING ON THAT PORTAL. STANFORD’S ON THE OTHER SIDE, I CAN SMELL IT.”

“Curse you, Cipher!” Ford roared, “leave my family out of it!”

“I’LL LEAVE YOUR FAMILY _INTO_ IT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THESE TWO HAVE BEEN A PAIN IN MY SIDES SINCE DAY ONE.” Cipher leered over at the kids.

“I don’t care! You have no power here, you have no purpose here!”

Cipher batted his eyelashes. “OH FORDSY, HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT? CONSIDERING YOU’RE THE PERSON THAT MADE THE DEAL WITH ME IN THE FIRST PLACE.”

Ford stopped struggling to move. “Wh...what?”

“Gotta find him,” Stan chanted. His eyes were glazed.

“YEAH. STANFORD IS THE ONE THAT MADE THE DEAL WITH ME. STANLEY HERE CAN’T GET RID OF ME UNTIL HE FINDS STANFORD. ISN’T THAT RIGHT STANNY-BOY?”

Ford’s eyes narrowed. “You unmitigated charlatan.”

“STICKS AND STONES CAN BREAK MY BONES BUT YOU’RE THE ONE IN THE CONTAINMENT BEAM.” Cipher squinted. “ABOUT THAT—” he shot a ray of light at Ford.

Pressure instantly increased all around him. Ford bellowed in pain.

“Great uncle Ford!” Dipper writhed on the hook. Cipher slowly floated down until he was eye-level with him.

“WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL-WELL-WELL-WELL-WELL! PINE TREE, MY FAVORITE NUISANCE! HOW’S GETTING THAT ONE GIRL TO NOTICE YOU GOING? NEED SOME TIPS? I RECOMMEND A PUPPET SHOW!”

Dipper spat at him. Cipher pointed at it and changed it to a wasp before it landed.

“THAT’S NO WAY TO BEEHAVE. WHY DON’T I CHECK IN WITH SHOOTING ST—”

Mabel wasn’t on the hook anymore. She had lifted her arms and slid out of her sweater, now she was running to where Stan labored at the console.

“Grunkle Stan! You need to stop.”

“Get back, sweetie,” Stan said without emotion. “I got important stuff to do.”

Mabel grabbed onto his hands. “Grunkle Stan! Remember when I said I trusted you? I do. I trust you would never do anything to hurt me, right?” Tears formed in her eyes. “Right?”

Stan couldn’t look at her. He stared down at the floor. Moisture was steadily streaming down his cheeks.

“If you really think you need to do this, I won’t stop you.” Mabel closed her eyes and released Stan’s hands.

“What? Mabel—” Dipper struggled.

“If...if you really need it...even if it does hurt me, I won’t stop you,” she whispered.

Stan didn’t move for a long moment. Then he sank to his knees, clumsily wrapping his arms around her like a drowning man clinging to a buoy.

Cipher squinted in irritation. “WHAT IS THIS, SOME KIND OF COUNSELING SESSION? HUG LATER! WE’VE GOT A PORTAL TO OPERATE!”

Ford forced air into his lungs. “Bet you—wish you’d—left me—alone—now—don’t you?” he gasped.

Cipher turned to him. Then he scrunched the lower lid on his eye. It was the closest the demon ever came to smiling.

“THAT’S AN IDEA. WHY DON’T WE CHECK IN WITH **YOUR DIMENSION**?”

Cipher’s eye flickered through a variety of colors and textures until he settled on a dull grey. He projected an image from his eyeball, and suddenly Ford could see it was the lab. His lab. The portal was glowing and pulsing as if he’d just fallen through it and suddenly there was Fiddleford, good old Fiddleford, thirty years younger and saner and he was gaping at the portal and he was screaming at the portal and he was

and he was

and he was

And he was shutting down the portal and he was disassembling the portal good old Fiddleford wise Fiddleford was taking it apart piece by piece so that it could never be reopened again—

Ford went numb. He stopped fighting the pressure, letting the air squeeze from his lungs.

Dipper, after much squirming, dropped from the hook.

“Think fast!” he cried, tossing a handful of colorful bits at the triangle.

“AHH, ATTACK GLITTER!” Cipher’s eye started watering. “EVEN IN NON-CORPOREAL FORM THIS STILL HURTS!”

Gravity became weaker. Small objects, like pens and coffee cups, lifted from their surfaces.

“Grunkle Stan!”

Stan raised his face. He clutched Mabel to him like a stuffed animal.

“You have to shut it down, please!” Dipper ran to their huddled figures. His face took on a gentle, almost paternal cast. Dipper knelt, took off his hat, and held it out to Stan. “This is you. Not the portal. It doesn’t matter what name you have. You’re still my Grunkle!”

Stan blinked. He firmly but gently set Mabel aside. He rose to his feet.

“FINISH IT NOW, STANFORD! I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SEE YOU, BUT I CAN SMELL SECOND THOUGHTS ON YOU!”

Ford’s vision tunneled, grew black at the edges.

Stan walked hunched-over to the lever in front of the portal. He grasped it with both hands as if he were about to throw it.

Then he hit the red shutdown button at the end of it.

“STANFOOOOOOORD!” Cipher roared.

“You should’ve known going in, demon.” Stan kept his back to Cipher, speaking levelly and low. “The one thing I'm really good at, only thing I've ever been good at, is screwing up.”

Ciper’s now bloodshot eye bulged. He took angry, heaving breaths as he swelled, a starry galaxy replacing the yellow brick like texture of his body.

Then he popped back to his original form.

“NO BIGGIE.” He shrugged. “I HAVE OTHER IRONS IN THE FIRE. IT’S LIKE THE SONG SAYS: WE’LL MEET AGAIN. DON’T KNOW WHERE. DON’T KNOW WHEN. BUT I KNOW **WE’LL MEET AGAIN**.” The triangle promised.

Cipher vanished, restoring the color and relieving the pressure from Ford’s body. He collapsed to the lab floor and just lay there.

“Grunkle Ford!” Mabel ran to his side. “Are you okay! Did you faint? I can help with that.”

Ford stood up mechanically.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t belong here. I should go.”

On numb legs he stood, not really looking at anything. He took a few stiff steps.

“Wait!” the pressure that clamped on his back pinned him to the present. It was a familiar pressure, one that matched his own body curve for curve.

“Please don’t leave. Please?” Stan hugged him tightly. “I know I screwed up, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stay.”

“Got to go,” Ford repeated, “I don’t belong here.”

“Please? I’ll go. You can have the shack back, you can have the kids! I’ll drive far away and leave you alone, you can stay here as long as you want and I'll never bother you! I don’t care that this wasn’t your dimension, it can still be your home.”

“I don’t belong here,” Ford said. His shoulders shook. His body slowly sank to the floor as the strength ebbed from his legs. Behind his glasses, his eyes were as wet as Stan’s. “I don’t belong here.”

After a moment, the children joined them, plastering the two old men with their bodies as if that pressure alone would hold everything together.

 

It was a sunny day in Gravity Falls. In the front yard of the mystery shack the children, miraculously, were playing. And it was a miracle like every new day was a miracle, in that its frequent occurrence did nothing to lessen its importance.

Ford smiled down at them from the second-story window.

“I finished draining the fuel. That thing ain’t going nowhere.” Stan walked in, wiping his hands on a towel.

The silent question lingered in the air between them.

Ford sighed. “Good.Too much of a liability.”

Stan's shoulders relaxed from the unspoken tension. “Once you're better, we'll bust that thing down to scrap.”

“Valuable scrap. I bet we could get a pretty good-sized flying saucer out of that thing.” Ford chuckled. “Which is kind of funny, considering where we got the materials for that thing in the first place.”

Stan joined him at the window. “Boy, look at them go. Where do they get all that energy?”

“They’re kids. They don’t know any better. They think they’ll always be this strong, this happy.”

“Were we ever like that?”

The two exchanged glances.

“Enough like that,” Ford admitted. “I don’t care for being old, I can tell you.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“Death?”

“No, jail.”

Ford laughed. He let out a pained wheeze as he clutched at his ribs and sat down heavily. Stan hovered over him.

“Sorry. Forgot about that.”

Ford waved him away.   
“It’s fine, Stan. I’ll live.”

Stan seated himself next to Ford. There were so many unspoken questions, so many things they needed to know about each other, so many things they needed to re-learn.

They could all wait.

Ford coughed a little. Stan silently put an arm around his torso to steady him. They watched Mabel chase Dipper around with a slug on a stick.

“Any sign of the triangle?” Ford asked.

“Nah.” Stan scratched his stubble. “Not even a whisper. I’m surprised he went so easy, after all that…” he broke off uncomfortably.

Ford studied the scene out the window. “Cipher’s parting words worry me. He seemed a bit too casual about his plans being thwarted.”

“Yeah. And what do you think he meant by that ‘we’ll meet again’ crap?” Stan paused. His eyes widened. “You don’t think…”

“He simply absconded to another dimension?” Ford nodded curtly. “It would seem so, yes.”

Stan looked at Ford, then down at where the kids were playing. “Is there anything we can do?”

Ford sighed. “Nothing much. Simply hope that the Pines family there can pull together as we have.”

Stan slid an arm around his shoulders. “Sure they will. They’re Pines, aren’t they?”

In a comfortable silence, they watched the twins play through the dying summer afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my, that was quite the roller-coaster ride, wasn't it?  
> Can I just say how incredibly flattering it is to have essay-length comments dissecting my writing in this fandom? Like, every time I looked at a thing and went "no one will get this" you guys proved me wrong. I should've known better than to underestimate a fandom that willingly solves complex ciphers in its spare time.  
> Thank you everyone who commented, speculated, and read, and I will see you in the next adventure!


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